Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/253



rendered in the late campaign against the Apache Indians, the Division Commander extends his thanks and his congratulations upon their brilliant successes. They have merited the gratitude of the nation.

By order of.

(Signed) , Assistant Adjutant-General.

Randall and Babcock persevered in their work, and soon a change had appeared in the demeanor of the wild Apaches; at San Carlos there grew up a village of neatly made brush huts, arranged in rectilinear streets, carefully swept each morning, while the huts themselves were clean as pie-crust, the men and women no longer sleeping on the bare ground, but in bunks made of saplings, and elevated a foot or more above the floor; on these, blankets were neatly piled. The scouts retained in service as a police force were quietly given to understand that they must be models of cleanliness and good order as well as of obedience to law. The squaws were encouraged to pay attention to dress, and especially to keep their hair clean and brushed. No abuse of a squaw was allowed, no matter what the excuse might be. One of the most prominent men of the Hualpai tribe—"Qui-ua-than-*yeva"—was sentenced to a year's imprisonment because he persisted in cutting off the nose of one of his wives. This fearful custom finally yielded, and there are now many people in the Apache tribe itself who have never seen a poor woman thus disfigured and humiliated.

Crook's promise to provide a ready cash market for everything the Apaches could raise was nobly kept. To begin with, the enlistment of a force of scouts who were paid the same salary as white soldiers, and at the same periods with them, introduced among the Apaches a small, but efficient, working capital. Unaccustomed to money, the men, after receiving their first pay, spent much of it foolishly for candy and other trivial things. Nothing was said about that; they were to be made to understand that the money paid them was their own to spend or to save as they pleased, and to supply as much enjoyment as they could extract from it. But, immediately after pay-day, General Crook went among the Apaches on the several reservations and made inquiries of each one of the principal chiefs what results had come to their wives and families from this new source of wealth. He explained that money could be made to grow just as an acorn